The present invention relates generally to electronic commerce and particularly to methods for marketing and advertising utilizing the Internet.
The term “Internet”, as commonly used, represents a collection of interconnected networks that are linked together to form a global network. On this network, web sites present informational content and are linked together to form what is referred to as the World Wide Web. A user of the web typically uses a modem to access designated phone lines and thereby go “on-line”. Software commonly referred to as a web browser is then used to find and select web sites, which electronically transmit to the user's computer requested web documents or web pages for viewing and interaction. Links from certain web sites to other web sites are accomplished by standard coding conventions, such as HTML code, which are inserted into the transmitted web documents and correspond to specific locations on the document. A link from one web site to another is often referred to as a hyperlink (hereinafter sometimes simply referred to as a “link”) and typically is presented as a highlighted word or phrase (search term) at a location on the Internet user's computer monitor that can be selected by the user. Selection of such a word or phrase is typically accomplished by means of a mouse click on the computer monitor screen location of the chosen word or phrase.
Aside from providing information through web sites, the Internet has recently developed into a valuable marketing tool in which products and services are offered for sale on the web sites and sold to the Internet user (customer) on-line. Methods to enhance this marketing have included using links to create associate retail outlets for a vendor. One such system is described in detail in U.S. Pat. No. 6,029,141, where an on-line retail environment is created by a retail associate which is accessible over the Internet by the customer (Internet user). When the customer wants to purchase a particular item offered by a retail associate, a link is used to transfer the customer to the vender's web site, and if a sale is ultimately made a commission is then paid to the retail associate.